$3 million grant to help San Diego habitat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has awarded $3 million for land purchases aimed at enhancing the San Diego County Water Authority’s habitat conservation plan — with the end goal of helping three endangered or threatened birds.

The money will enable conservation groups to buy parcels of environmentally sensitive land from willing sellers and add that acreage to the area the water authority has already set aside for conservation, said the agency’s water resources manager, Larry Purcell.

The water authority previously bought 1,900 acres to compensate for environmental damage from several projects, Purcell said. The additional purchases are targeted for San Vicente Creek, Escondido Creek in the Elfin Forest and the San Luis Rey River.

Agencies that receive money through the federal program must match it by 35 percent.

The $3 million could buy up to 300 acres of habitat used by the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher and least Bell’s vireo, as well as the threatened coastal California gnatcatcher, said Jane Hendron, acting branch chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Carlsbad.

The flycatcher and vireo occupy streamside habitat while the gnatcatcher lives in coastal sage scrub, one of the most endangered types of habitat in the country.

The new funding for the water authority is part of $32 million in “cooperative grants” awarded to 20 states in an effort to conserve various imperiled species in the U.S.

The Fish and Wildlife Service also has slated $3 million to enhance the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, with up to 3,114 acres for wildlife linkages, sand transport and core habitat for 20 species. And it has awarded $2.7 million to augment the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation.

“These regional conservation plans are important, they are working and they are doing good things for the long term conservation of our wildlife,” Hendron said.